Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (born April 21, 1975) is a Canadian-American poet, writer, educator, and social activist. Their writing and performance art focuses on documenting the stories of queer and trans people of color, abuse survivors, mixed-race people and diasporic South Asians and Sri Lankans. A central concern of their work is the interconnection of systems of colonialism, abuse and violence. They are also a writer and organizer within the disability justice movement.
Early life Piepzna-Samarasinha was raised in Worcester, Massachusetts and is of Burgher/Tamil Sri Lankan and Irish/Roma descent.
Piepzna-Samarasinha graduated from Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts in New York City in 1997. They received their Master of Fine Arts from Mills College.
Career Performance art Piepzna-Samarasinha has been performing spoken word since 1998.
As a spoken word artist, they have performed widely in the United States, Canada and Sri Lanka and have been featured at Bar 13, Michelle Tea's RADAR Reading Series, The Loft, and Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, as well as at universities including Yale, Sarah Lawrence, Oberlin, Swarthmore and the University of Southern California.
In 2001, frustrated with the racism of the local white-dominated queer and trans poetry scene and the homophobia in the local poetry spaces for people of color, Piepzna-Samarasinha began Browngirlworld, a reading series with the goal of creating a poetry and performance space for queer and trans people of color. Initially held weekly, the event became a biannual, large-scale poetry event in partnership with the Toronto Women's Bookstore, bringing artists such as Mango Tribe and D'Lo.
Piepzna-Samarasinha began teaching writing to queer, trans and Two Spirit youth at Supporting Our Youth Toronto's Pink Ink program.
In 2004, inspired by radical Asian and Pacific Islander American (APIA) arts and poetry youth education programs at the APIA Spoken Word Summit, Piepzna-Samarasinha and Gein Wong started the Asian Arts Freedom School.
The following year, Piepzna-Samarasinha traveled to the San Francisco Bay Area to study poetry with Suheir Hammad at Voices of Our Nations, an experience they credit with changing their life as a writer.
In 2006, Piepzna-Samarasinha wrote and premiered their first one-person show, Grown Woman Show, in which they discuss being "a queer girl of Sri Lankan descent" who is a survivor of incest perpetrated by their mother. Grown Woman Show has since been performed at the National Queer Arts Festival, Swarthmore College, Yale University, Reed College, and McGill University.
Later that year, Piepzna-Samarasinha met Ctheirry Galette on Friendster and created Mangos With Chili with the goal of creating an annual tour of performance artists who are queer and trans people of color.
Piepzna-Samarasinha is also involved with the biannual Asian Pacific Islander Spoken Word and Poetry Summit.
They were the 2009-2010 Artist in Residence at UC Berkeley's June Jordan's Poetry for the People. From 2009 to the present, they have been a commissioned performer with Sins Invalid, the national performance organization of queer people with disabilities and chronic illnesses.
While in Toronto, with Syrus Marcus Ware, they co-created Performance.Disability.Art (PDA), a performance-based disability arts collective. Through PDA, the pair co-curated Crip Your World: an Intergalactic Mad, Sick and Disabled Extravaganza for Mayworks Festival.
Teaching In 2001, Piepzna-Samarasinha taught writing to LGBTQ+ youth at Supporting Our Youth Toronto (SOY) through the Pink Ink program. This included working with the zine 10 Reasons to Riot which won Best Zine in Toronto in 2006. For this work they were awarded the Community Service to Youth Award from the City of Toronto in 2004.
In 2005, along with Gein Wong, they co-founded the Asian Arts Freedom School. They were also involved with The Canadian Sri Lankan Women's Action Network, an activist group seeking to promote peace with justice through a feminist lens to end Sri Lanka's 24 year civil war.
In 2007, Piepzna-Samarasinha returned to the US and studied at University of California Berkeley's June Jordan's Poetry for the People (P4P) Program.
Writing Piepzna-Samarasinha has published nine books independently, been included in ten anthologies, and edited two anthologies. Their work has also appeared in Yes, Vice, Room, Autostraddle, ColorLines, NOW, Xtra, Bitch, theirizons and other publications.
Healing Piepzna-Samarasinha is a member of Bad Ass Visionary Healers, a California-based activist healing collective, and has an "intuitive counseling" practice, Brownstargirl Tarot. They have been involved in organizing healing justice practice spaces at the Allied Media Conference, Safetyfest and other spaces. Personal life Piepzna-Samarasinha has lived in Brooklyn, Oakland, and Toronto and currently reside in South Seattle, Duwamish territories.
Piepzna-Samarasinha is non-binary, queer and disabled.
In relation to climate activist Greta Thunberg, they have described themself as "an autistic femme."
Awards and honors Self Piepzna-Samarasinha was a Voices of Our Nation and US Artists Disability Futures fellow (2020). +Awards for Piepzna-SamarasinhaYearAward / HonorRef.2004City of Toronto's Community Service Volunteer Award2009Bent Institute Mentor of the Bent Writing Institute of Seattle2020Jeanne Córdova Prize for Lesbian/Queer Nonfiction
Written works +Awards and honors for Piepzna-Samarasinha's worksYearWorkAwardResultRef.2012Love CakeLambda Literary Award for Lesbian PoetryWinner2016BodymapAudre Lorde Award for Lesbian PoetryFinalistDirty RiverJudy Grahn Award for Lesbian NonfictionFinalistLambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir or BiographyFinalistOver the Rainbow Project Book ListTop 102019Care WorkJudy Grahn Award for Lesbian NonfictionFinalist2020TonguebreakerAudre Lorde Award for Lesbian PoetryFinalist2021Beyond SurvivalLambda Literary Award for AnthologyFinalist
Bibliography Anthologies edited
Authored works
Children's books
Non-fiction
Poetry
Announced (Poetry)
References
External links
brownstargirl Website Poetry example Supporting Our Youth (SOY) Website Mangos With Chili TSAR Publications rabble.ca interview by Elizabeth Ruth